There are many reasons you might experience anxiety, and it often stems from triggers outside of your control. Everyone experiences anxiety at some point, whether it be right before a big presentation or when you’re preparing for a first date.
However some people experience chronic anxiety, with symptoms showing up nearly every day, sometimes with no direct cause or reason.
If you have chronic anxiety, you may not fully understand why. Anxiety is sometimes tricky to pinpoint, and both internal and external triggers may exacerbate it. Have you ever considered, however, that chronic anxiety may have roots in childhood trauma?
Let’s look at the reasons why and how this might be the case.
Instability From Your Childhood
One of the most overarching commonalities in childhood trauma is instability. Maybe your parents divorced, breaking your notion of a stable home. Or perhaps you spent a lot of time going back and forth between your parents’ homes.
You may also recall instability in your parents’ behavior. If one or both of your parents had a short temper or anger issues, you may have an underlying anxiety about how people will react to things you say. This anxiety may be especially prevalent if your parent quickly switched between being caring and attentive to being cold, angry, or distant.
Anxiety stems from worry about things that we can’t control. If you have anxiety as an adult, you may worry endlessly about worst-case scenarios or how future events will play out. Because you didn’t have stability as a child, you don’t know how to relax and go with the flow. Your childhood conditioned you to expect the worse, so that’s what you do as an adult.
Physical or Sexual Abuse
If you experienced abuse as a child, it could be a cause for anxiety as an adult. The mental effects of physical and sexual abuse stick with us long after the event itself is over. The trauma of abuse, physical, verbal or sexual, must be looked at to be healed.
Along with general anxiety, childhood abuse may lead to hypervigilance of physical touch as an adult. You may feel anxious about other people touching you, even in the form of a handshake or pat on the back. You may also struggle with intimacy, leading to anxiety about having and enjoying sex.
Fear of Being Rejected or Abandoned
In its simplest definition, anxiety is persistent worry and fear about situations. Often, our worries and fears are irrational, but anxiety makes us focus on worst-case scenarios. If your parents were in and out of your life as a child or abandoned you altogether, this may bring up anxiety issues in adulthood.
Trust is crucial when we form relationships, but if you’re always worried about rejection or abandonment, it’s hard to build true, lasting ones. As you work to build a relationship with someone, you may feel overwhelmed with anxiety. If it gets bad enough, it may start to interfere with the relationship.
How Emotionally Focused Therapy Can Help
Because chronic anxiety often stems from trauma, emotionally focused therapy can help you come to terms with both childhood trauma and anxiety. Childhood trauma is not easy to talk about or relive, but emotionally focused individual therapy offers a safe space to explore it.
As you start to delve into your childhood trauma, your therapist will also help you understand how it may feed into your anxiety. Once you understand your anxiety triggers, you can learn strategies to cope.
You may not realize how childhood trauma is affecting your anxiety as an adult. If any of the above scenarios sound familiar, consider emotionally focused therapy to heal. With time, patience, and the willingness to come to terms with your trauma, you can take steps towards coping with your chronic anxiety. As time goes on, you’ll find healing from your past and more hopeful about your present and future.